Ikuiapa

Ikuiapá is one explanation of the Indigenous origin of the name Cuiabá, a settlement on a tributary of the upper Paraguay River. The river connects the uplands of Mato Grosso with the Pantanal wetlands to the south. Long before the arrival of Portuguese miners, this was Indigenous country, including lands inhabited by the Bororo.

Gold discoveries brought expeditions from São Paulo into the region in the early eighteenth century. A mining settlement was founded in 1719, and further discoveries drew newcomers to its streams. In 1727 the Portuguese authorities raised the settlement to a royal town, Vila Real do Senhor Bom Jesus de Cuiabá. Its growth brought colonial government and mining into a distant interior linked to the rest of Brazil by long river journeys.